WOW! for a second there I tought my ex was writing that. It literally made my blood freez.

I’m going trough almost the same thing as you described, only in my case the thing ended cause of the distance. Everybody is saying taht it’ll be better with time, but when you’re ready to give your life for somebody cause you just can’t help but loveing them so much and then they walk away, it is in a way like dying. I myself can’t find anything anymore to look forward to, or feel some joy or anything..

I don’t want to make you feel bad cause of that, I’m just saying how I feel.. altough in my case I was the one to move, and she said she isn’t strong enough for a long distance relationship. It really sucks :/

Dear Rodrigo,

I fully understand where you’re coming from. Trust me. But I just promised myself that I won’t dwell in that emotion of feeling like I cannot live without him because I can. I just don’t want to. I felt that way for the first 3 days of our break up but I realized that my life cannot be centered around this one human being, he is not my entire life. Although he truly was the greatest portion of it, he is not all of it. And that’s important to know.

I’m trying not to look at it as a loss and appreciate that I was lucky enough to experience a love like ours. I take it as a blessing. It was magic. Not many people can say they’ve experienced that. So try to live and think positively. The negative aspects of it I feel will not be beneficial to our healing process.

Well to be honest, I can’t accept it just like that, to live the rest of my life without a person who became a part of me and I became a part of her. I could tell by only by the simplest things like her voice how she truly feels and in many ways we even tought the same way, like on some instant desicions.

I don’t know why something like that had to end, why I just couldn’t love that person, she would love me, and we would be happy forever. I know I was giving all of myself to make her happy, and she also did the best she new and could. And for me it was perfect, and I can’t get over that.

Now, people want me to move on. To what should I move on? How should I find something better than perfect, which this relationship really was. I know there are many different people out there, but I just don’t want to anymore. I’ll rather stay alone, than be with a wrong person pretending I’m happy, and telling her I love her when truth is, my hearth she’ll never have. Just wouldn’t be fair to that other woman.

I’m reading the comments here and I respect everyone’s contribution yet the one thing I read that summed up how I felt after being dumped by the woman I was in love with is “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” That couldn’t be more accurate. Picture hugging someone then you suddenly look them in the eyes and say, “I’m sorry.” Then you stick your hand into their chest and rip their heart out then proceed to lessen the pain by throwing sprinkles of cold water over it. “No, I don’t want to be your friend!” Probably never ever again. You made your choice so let me choose to survive without a heart or spend sufficient time trying to find a new one. I will get over it and I will pretend that everything is ok when I see you, even years later. But a part of me might always still hate you. I can’t help it. I will love you and/or I might hate you. I have real feelings too. Just sharing how I felt. And still do today, well just a small part of me anyway.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by Kyle.

It’s been close to a year since this thread began, can the original poster give us an update? Everyone else is also welcome to give an update as well!

I can offer my perspective as the “dumpee” in this situation. I was MADLY in love with a woman last summer. We started dating, even though she had plans to study abroad next semester (both of us were entering our final year as undergraduates). But in spite of caution, we fell in love. By the time she boarded the plane, we had made plans to move away together after graduation. I wanted to marry this woman!

However, trouble arose as soon as she touched down in her new place. She was in a lot of distress at the overwhelming experience of being in a far off land, compounded with the loss of our physical intimacy which we had both come to depend on as a source of comfort and rest. The stress triggered a lot of old anxiety and sadness in her, and it was agonizing to see her in such pain. After a few weeks, her distress normalized somewhat, but now there was a palpable emotional distance between us. Our Skype conversations felt uncomfortable and forced, and after each time we hung up, a wave of profound despair would wash over me. I couldn’t explain it at the time, but in hindsight I know that this despair was an unconscious awareness that it was over. Sure enough within a couple of weeks she broke it off, citing her feeling increasingly distant from me. I was devasted. Where once was the vision of a beautiful future with a woman I loved with all of me was a cold and dark void (I won’t apologize for the cliches since I have come to understand, from reading other accounts, that they are cliches for a reason ). We discontinued any form of contact (for healing, this is ESSENTIAL for both parties following a break up! Also, you MUST unfriend them on Facebook. Seeing your pics of ex with her new boyfriend will renew your lease on suffering and multiply it by a thousand).

The most important thing I can say is that everything you hear about heartache being a source of inspiration, of spiritual and personal development, is absolutely true. I was in so much pain that I threw myself into applying for grad schools. I no longer needed to wait for her to decide together where to go after college, and I was desperate to have a hopeful future to replace the void where ours once was. Much more importantly, I discovered my spirituality. I began a daily practice of meditation and started doing yoga. I didn’t expect these things to have any effect, but after about a month I noticed, with a deep awe, the flowing oneness underneath the universe, and I had developed an unprecedented capacity for emotional expression. Alone in my room, I would burst into tears, astonished at myself for the depth of my sorrow. But also, throughout the day, I would have overwhelming and unjustified bouts of joy.

Weird, innit?

In the end, I got accepted into a PhD program. When my ex returned, I gave her back some things and we had a pleasant exchange for a minute or two. Then we said our goodbyes, and she walked away. That was that. We have had no contact since. I don’t know where she is or what her plans are, though I would be lying if I said I hadn’t endlessly and obsessively speculated about it. I suspect that she felt a great sense of belonging where she studied abroad, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she has returned there. Certainly, I doubt that she is through traveling. But I cannot know for sure without asking her, and I am still too heartbroken (and terms eight damn months) to resume contact with her.

All in all, I am grateful for the time we had together, but I am even more grateful that she had the courage to end it, because in that pain (and there was A LOT of pain, and still is) I rediscovered who I really am, or at least got on the right path for doing it. People fall in love, and they fall out of love, for whatever reason, for no reason at all other than just growing apart. We had grown apart. I did all that I could do, but it just happened. I realize now, that while I was certain that I wanted to spend my life with her,the both of us still have a lot of growing to do before we are ready for marriage and a family. She realized this before I did. I am thankful to have had my heart so utterly broken because now I am more equipped to love, to know what love is,to know how unsafe and uncontrollable love is,and to know how deeply I value love in my life.

So, the final word: Yes, OP, he is heartbroken because he loved you. And because he loved you, what he really wanted was for you to thrive and grow, even if that meant without him. You fell out of love with him. Likely because, like my ex, you realized that you needed to expand yourself and grow, and you were being limited to this end by your attachment to him. And, like me, he will soon look upon his broken heart as one of the most important events of his life. He will look back on his heartache and see how it helped him to grow, deepen,transcend, expand.

Some quotes, (both paraphrased since I don’t have the source material on me ATM):

“The wound is where light enters the body.” -Rumi

“When you love each other in such a way that you both feel free, then your love is true. ” -Thich Nhat Hanh

So there’s that.

Joel, what you wrote is really touching.

Please read my below post, and if you can, please give me your thoughts.

Hi guys,

I need help from anyone here.

I was in a super amazing relationship -up to about two months ago. Over jealousy, I argued with him, just prior to our first trip overseas. We were very serious about each other. The argument happened over messages from his ex on a fake fb account which she late denied to have done, but she was making me jealous with photos etc. I loved him (still do) VERY much, and out of fear of losing him, I aced stupidly and said the trip should be a break between us, the magic is killed, I don’t know if I feel the same about you, etc etc, this all over messages, whilst he was saying “this is just a mere road bump, I’m sure we can get past this”, “what are you talking about, this makes no sense” “I love you more than anything” etc etc. Then after I became cold and insisted on this for a couple of days, he broke up with me. Then I said please no, lets talk in person. We met in person and he said we are not compatible, he can see this happening again etc.

We caught up again two days later, he wanted to see some scrapbook we had made about us and have a chat to me. He still said it has gone too far, we can’t get back, then he had tears, then he said he still loves and adores me and once he finds out who is doing this to us (the messages through fb) we will probably get back together.

The day before the trip he sent me a teddy bear and chocolates and after i texted him thanking him, he asked me if he could take me to the airport the next day. I said yes.

He took me to the airport and we had dinner. We talked and he said we will talk when we’re back. He waited for hours whilst i queued for an international flight. Just watching me from the distance.

Then, we exchanged a few messages,where he would say it is over but claiming that he adores me but is scared i would do it again. For weeks, maybe a month, I messaged him, apologising, telling him how i feel, how stressed and under pressure I was during the time i was like that with him and the jealousy affected me. (By the way we had had other similar arguments on the same topic = same person, ex).

After a week he went back to the first day break up msg mode, just formal and cold. Towards the end of my trip, he ended contact with me, and sent me a text saying that he was glad that I was having a good trip etc etc, and that he will see me when I get back. The same day he unfriended me on fb, and so did his brother. I was upset so I sent him a message saying that considering he didn’t even want to be fb friends (he has never unfriended an ex before!) he can send my car and home keys by mail. He has been back for over 2 weeks now and hasn’t sent them.

It’s been almost a month now, that I haven’t heard from him. I went on a no contact two weeks ago and contacted him 4 days later to clarify something. So it has been about 11 days no contact from me and 28 days no contact from him. He is a really great guy, very well mannered and loving and caring.

I am told when he is asked by coffee shop guys (where he buys the coffee) about me, he changes subject. So if they ask “how is michaela and when is she back” he replies: how is your gf. He was asked on the first day back at work “how is michaela and how was the trip” he said “we weren’t together”.

What are your thoughts?
I know he loves me still. I know he genuinely saw a future for us but I think he now has made it big at home and might be embarrassed to take it back?

If he has decided, why hasn’t he given me closure, or why hasn’t he sent me the car and home keys?

I love this guy with my everything.

ps. He also gave mixed msgs. As he waited at the airport for me, he said he loved me, but wanted me to move forward, at the same time said he wanted to be in my life but in another capacity. But then he said we will talk when you get back. He hugged and kissed me so much, (just not on the lips).

Dear andrew.did:

I hear your anger and guilt: your anger turned inward. It is strong, that guilt of not taking her side before she died.

But it was NOT your job. NOT your responsibility. You had nothing to do with your father cheating on your mother and you could not have possibly “fixed” that wrong done to your mother. How could you?

It is that child like thinking that you carry and it is harming you. This UNEARNED guilt is (to use your work) f&*^ing with you and your relationships. It is harming you.

You see your mother in all women that you date.

It is not you who cheated on your mother. It was not your job to keep your father from cheating. You had no power over what he did. You were not the… man of the house. You were a child the whole time, even when she died, you were only 18.

Please write here. There is a way for you to heal from this unfortunate injury, this false belief that you are responsible for what you are not.

anita